Cake #16 - Pizza Boston

Savoury Saturday Cake - Pizza Boston.

Feeling like making something neat for Saturday lunch or maybe there are friends coming over for tea but your fridge is half empty? 

A little bit of this and a little bit of that, a little bit of rolling and a little bit of baking and you have your Pizza Boston. You can basically fill it with whatever you have in the fridge. If you do not have cheese, simply mix one egg and 100 ml of creme fraiche and use that instead. If you fancy a veggie version, use chopped peppers, red onions, fresh tomatoes. The main thing is that you do not need much to make this tasty and even festive-looking savoury cake. And compared to pizza, even the last crumb will be eaten so there will be no pizza crusts left on the plate. (Yes, my kids never eat their pizza crusts.)

Pizza Boston

Dough
300 ml lukewarm water
25 g fresh yeast (or 7 g fast action dry yeast)
½ tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
800-900 ml strong white flour
50 ml olive oil

Filling
100 g tomato puree
basil, oregano, celery salt, paprika, black pepper
100 g salami and / or pepperoni, chopped
100 g grated Mozzarella
125 g fresh Mozzarella, chopped

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water.

2. Add salt and sugar and mix well.

3. Start adding flour gradually.

4. After you have kneaded in about half of the flour, add olive oil.

5. Knead in more flour until your dough is not sticky any more but still soft. It is better to leave the dough a little too soft than make it too dense as the buns/cake will be too dry and hard after baking.

6. Leave the dough to rise in a warm place until double in size, for about half an hour.

7. Line a 25 cm x 25 cm pan with baking paper. My favourite way to do this is to wet a piece of baking paper and crumple it into a ball to get rid of the excess water and make it softer so it is easier to line the form.

8. Roll your dough into a rectangle, about 0,5 cm thick.
9. Spread tomato puree first on the pizza cake base, then sprinkle herbs and spices, salami and cheese.
10. Roll the dough into a cylinder and then cut it into slices of about 5 cm / 2" long.
11. Place the slices in the pan, side by side but not too tightly to leave some room to rise.
12. Let the cake rise for about half an hour.
13. Preheat the oven to 200C / 390F.
14. Bake you Pizza Boston in the oven for about 30-40 minutes.
15. Take it out of the oven and sprinkle some cheese on top and bake another 5 minutes until the cheese has melted.
16. Garnish with fresh herbs, olives, jalapeno slices and tomato slices and serve with green salad.

I prefer using fresh yeast. In Ireland the easiest places to find it are the Polish and other Eastern European shops.

Pizza dough to be rolled and filled. Pan lined with wet baking parchment. 

Pizza rolled and topped with tomato puree, herbs and spices, salami, pepperoni, fresh Mozzarella and grated Mozzarella.

Pizza rolled and cut into slices and slices placed side by side into pan.

Gooey Pizza Boston garnished and ready to be enjoyed!